After six years of privately-renting a house in Easton I came home from work one day to find a brown envelope behind my front door. Although it was upsetting to see a Section 21 eviction notice inside that hand-delivered envelope, it came as no surprise to me.
I suspected that my landlord was planning an eviction when they called me in February to arrange a gas safety inspection. I only can recall one other inspection in the past six years which happened after I informed the landlord that I would withhold my rent until the check (which is a legal requirement that should be done every year) was done.
For the last two months I have been looking for somewhere else to rent in vain. Agencies in Bristol have told me that my income is not high enough to rent or that two children are too many for a two-bedroom property, but most of the time the properties are already fully booked for viewings.
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According to one estate agent, rentals in Bristol are fully booked for viewings within 20 minutes of being listed. I have lost count of the number of enquiries I have made but have only managed to secure one viewing only to be told later that it was taken off the market.
Last week my home working was interrupted by a knock at the door. I opened it to find a very large man and behind him were two others sitting in a van. He told me he was visiting to see if we had left yet as according to the eviction notice we should have moved out by May 2. But where are we supposed to go?
I had already gone to the council the previous week and was told that if I am unable to find somewhere to rent privately then we must remain in the property until the court grants the landlord a possession order. Until then we remain on band four, which according to HomeChoice means we are ‘unlikely’ to be ‘ever made an offer’.
But my situation is far from unique and I frequently encounter people who have found themselves in a similar scenario or have friends feeling stuck after a no-fault eviction. The majority, like myself, are working single parent families who were previously just about managing to privately rent in Bristol before ending up as another number on the housing waiting list.
Bristol is now the most expensive city to rent outside of London but the systemic housing crisis is felt across the UK. The latest figures from the Ministry of Justice show that landlord repossessions increased by 98 per cent at the end of 2022 and no-fault section 21 evictions went up by 76 per cent between April and June last year.
We are falling back into the Victorian era in terms of housing affordability. Food prices are facing the highest annual increase since 1977 and as property prices continue to rise, it comes as no surprise that rough sleeping has increased by 26 per cent this year.
While more people struggle to keep a roof over their heads, the richest one per cent of Britons hold more wealth than 70 per cent of the population. We may live in one of the richest countries in the world but as long as the government works to facilitate the greed of the wealthy minority, there is no easy way out of the housing crisis.
I have privately rented for most of my adult life and moving is always challenging but I have always managed to find somewhere to live. I checked my emails this morning to find another series of rejections, I have almost given up and now feel like all I'm left to do is wait for the bailiffs to arrive.
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